odysseyroc

I agree with thatrorbert about the color. In my opinions the color combination is a little odd to begin with, but then you have similar vaues and saturation levels and it gets a a little hard to look at. I did a quick overpaint to show some areas where I think you can improve this. I also added a third color to sort of round things out a little bit.

Lagbert

thatrobert wrote:Great idea and fun character. The night-time colors make sense but there is something unpleasant about the combination. Sorry if that sounds vague! I think a color change would improve this immensely.

Thanks for the input. Any suggestions regarding a new color combination?

I was aiming for a club atmosphere. Harsh colored lights against darkness. I tried a monochromatic color set going from navy to cyan, but it just felt flat.

Lagbert

odysseyroc wrote:I agree with thatrorbert about the color. In my opinions the color combination is a little odd to begin with, but then you have similar vaues and saturation levels and it gets a a little hard to look at. I did a quick overpaint to show some areas where I think you can improve this. I also added a third color to sort of round things out a little bit.

Odysseyroc,

Thanks for the suggestions. I'm not a big fan of back lit edge highlights, but I can see why you did it - they really help to bring out the edges in shaded areas.

The highlights on the hand holding the headphones look good. I knew I needed some there to be consistent with the headphones, but I wasn't sure I could add them without creating a conflict with the other portions of the arm that were in the shadow.

I wonder if a different lighting angle is needed all together. When the left turntable is realistically lit (as in your example and the WIP pic in the preview thread) it feels like the composition is getting dragged down into the corner away from the dinosaurs face.

Thanks again for the great input - I'll need to play with this design some more in the future.

odysseyroc

Thanks for the suggestions. I'm not a big fan of back lit edge highlights, but I can see why you did it - they really help to bring out the edges in shaded areas.

The highlights on the hand holding the headphones look good. I knew I needed some there to be consistent with the headphones, but I wasn't sure I could add them without creating a conflict with the other portions of the arm that were in the shadow.

I wonder if a different lighting angle is needed all together. When the left turntable is realistically lit (as in your example and the WIP pic in the preview thread) it feels like the composition is getting dragged down into the corner away from the dinosaurs face.

Thanks again for the great input - I'll need to play with this design some more in the future.

Don't think of them as "back lit edge highlights", they're supposed to represent reflective light. They're a little extreme in the overpaint, but they are really necessary if you want your image to have any real dimension. As a rule, you should you should have a highlight midtone, core shadow and reflected light. Here's an example of what I'm talking about. Obviously you don't ALWAYS have to follow that formula, but it's the most basic way of doing things.

When your doing something with such simple coloring, it's really important to pick just the right places to put light and shadow. Your light source isn't real consistent, the head looks to be uplit, while the rest seems to be lit maybe from the side. It's a real balancing act to get things just right. In comics, Frank Miller, Mike Mignola, and Eduardo Risso are all really good at finding that balance. Do a GIS for any of those guys, and you'll see what I'm talking about

Lagbert

I generally think of lighting in photographic terms, and the easiest way to get that type of lighting is to set up a remote flash very close to and behind the subject.

As a rule, you should you should have a highlight midtone, core shadow and reflected light. Here's an example of what I'm talking about.

I see what you're saying. Thanks for the link. In photographic terms, the examples assume that the object is sitting on a white surface with a white wall close behind. The white wall is providing the reflected back light.

Obviously you don't ALWAYS have to follow that formula, but it's the most basic way of doing things.

In the case of a stage, the floor and wall behind the subject are usually black, thus the subject would be free of reflected back lighting.

When your doing something with such simple coloring, it's really important to pick just the right places to put light and shadow.

Agreed - good light and shadow placement is what made my ninja star design work. It would have been a total flop without proper light.

Your light source isn't real consistent, the head looks to be uplit, while the rest seems to be lit maybe from the side.

I was just noticing that myself. That's why I was having problems lighting the arm correctly - it started in body's light source zone and moved to the head's light source zone. I'm going to redo the shadows on the body so they line up with the face better. I'm also thinking about several different ways I want to try to color it.

In comics, Frank Miller, Mike Mignola, and Eduardo Risso are all really good at finding that balance. Do a GIS for any of those guys, and you'll see what I'm talking about

I'm a big fan of Miller's style, and Mignola simply rocks all the way around. I was really impressed with how they were able to carry his style over to animation in the Adventures of Screw on Head.

odysseyroc

One thing to keep in mind is that you really should be approaching this stuff as if it were photography. Dave McCaig's tutorial on breaking up planes & drawing attention to important elements, does a pretty good job of explaining why we have look at thing differently. I'm not here to say you have to do things a certain way, or that I'm right and your wrong or whatever, but there are a lot of things that don't really translate from one medium to the other.

odysseyroc

Lagbert wrote:I decided to do a quick experiment. The design has been recolored with 3 colors each separated by 120 degrees on the color wheel.

The shadows still need fixing but here are two color combinations that came out of the experiment:

I like this one but the saturation levels need to come down some.

I though this color set on cranberry was surprisingly pleasing.

Am I still barking up the wrong tree?

On the quote from above, yes it should have read "Shouldn't"

You're still having saturation and value problems. On the cranberry for example, the ink colors and shirt color are all pretty similar in saturation and your shadow color is also too close in value to the shirt. I'd go darker and less saturated on the shadow.

odysseyroc

Lagbert wrote:I decided to do a quick experiment. The design has been recolored with 3 colors each separated by 120 degrees on the color wheel.

The shadows still need fixing but here are two color combinations that came out of the experiment:

I like this one but the saturation levels need to come down some.

I though this color set on cranberry was surprisingly pleasing.

Am I still barking up the wrong tree?

I did another overpaint. I kept the hue the same on everything, but I adjusted the saturation and value of things. Again, not to say "this is how you do it", but more to show you how important it is to have value changes and varying saturations levels .

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